Written in Her Own Voice

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Acknowledgments

It is a great pleasure as the editors of this book to extend our appreciation to all the writers, who simply and masterfully wrote from their hearts and gave these invaluable gifts to all our children and our world.

We are grateful to our cover artist, Julio Desmont of Haiti and our Adelphi University students, Jiaxuan Zong, Danny Batusta and Carolyn Garcia.

DOLAPO

I am indebted to my family—My mother, the late Deaconess Rebecca Olufunmilayo Odanye, a brilliant, strong, and loving mother, who was and will always be a constant inspiration to me and my sister Adefunke Mary Mustapha and our children: Samuel Adeniji Neill, Yewande Mustapha, Damilola Mustapha, and Eniola Mustapha. I am thankful to my wonderful husband, Philip S. Morrison, for his unwavering support.

ANNE

I am grateful for the support I have received in this journey of life: I cannot express enough thanks to my husband, Dr. George Mungai, and my daughters, Catherine ← vii | viii → Auger, Caroline Mungai, Lilian Arthur, and Pauline Agornyo, for bearing with a busy mother who juggled work and school and got even busier after her dissertation as she juggled teaching and tenure process. Special thanks to my husband for the introductory poem for my chapter.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Mr. and Mrs. Simon Njuguna, for the sacrifice of making sure I received the best education and sending me to a boarding school to ensure that I did not fall through the cracks. I thank them for the countless times the value of education was taught in our home.

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Preface

DOLAPO ADENIJI-NEILL

Modern readers have become fascinated with autobiographies because they reveal much about cultures, and, especially, a writer’s sense of self and the ability for many voices to describe their world as they see it. Autobiographies offer cultural criticisms and give us a glimpse into the fragility of identity and the difficulties of attaining a strong sense of self (Conway, 1992, p. VII). The purpose of this book is to illuminate how gender and gender roles affect educational success and life aspirations using autobiographies and intersectionality inquiries as guiding theoretical frameworks (Crenshaw, 1991; Darling, 2010; Patton, 2002, pp. 107–110). Oyewunmi (2005) posited that gender is socially constructed and that the way it is used in dominant discourses implies that it is a biologically determined category. She further noted that most of the scholars who do research on gender have derived their conceptual and theoretical tools from studies based on Western Europe, the United States, and Canada. In this book, the invitation is not only to re-examine western conceptualization of womanhood but also to bring to the fore other women’s voices from around the world.

When researchers travel to Africa and have not spent a sufficient amount of years there to conduct research, they are working through the lens of Western modes of understanding and Western preoccupations. In Burundi, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and other formerly colonized nations, Christianity introduced a male deity, religious beliefs, and practices that dethroned female deities and other indigenous deities, substituting their positions in the societies with a male God and his son, his bishops, and priests. Male bias then became a strong feature ← ix | x → of government educational programs, as well as mission policies and education (Amadiume, 1987, pp. 134–135). Thus, it can be an uphill struggle for a female to gain higher education in many non-Western nations. This is especially true in families where resources are limited—a boy may be chosen for further education instead of his sister.

Authors in this book examine various layers of their lives, including discrimination against them as women through intersectionality theory. Darling (2010) defined intersectionality as an effective tool for addressing the complex diversity of women’s lived experiences, a tool for understanding and viewing how gender intersects with other identities. She further noted, “Intersectionality is also useful for identifying the ways in which some women experience multiple intersecting privileges, rights, and opportunities, thereby advancing their social standing, status, and contributions to social development” (p. 93).

In this book, layers of women’s lives and lived experiences are examined in autobiographical forms, and the struggles and triumphs of womanhood are given voice.

Womanhood is not necessarily a synonym for gender, because in Africa and many other societies, social roles are not necessarily biological roles (Oyewunmi, 2005). Therefore, in these narratives we have looked at how our pasts and presents contributed to our educational achievements and our life purposes in the hope that our stories will serve as lanterns to light the ways of young women and men in the pursuit of educational and life aspirations.

We also examined how power relations within society perpetuate rather than inhibit the reproduction of exclusion and marginalization along gender, class, religious, and ideological lines in the academy (Murunga, 2005, p. 398).

The authors of this book examined the influence of families, communities, and societies in our private, educational, and professional lives.

It was our goal to examine

REFERENCES

Amadiume, I. (1997). Reinventing Africa. London, England; New York, NY: Zed Books.

Conway, J. K. (Ed.). (1992). Written by herself, autobiographies of women: An anthology. New York, NY: Vintage Books. ← x | xi →

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.

Darling, M. (2010). Gender intersectionality: Unfinished business of justice advocacy. In R. G. Johnson, III (Ed.), Women of color in leadership taking their rightful place (pp. 91–106). San Diego, CA: Birkdale.

Murunga, G. R. (2005). African women in the academy and beyond: Review essay. In O. Oyewunmi (Ed.), African gender studies: A reader. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Oyewunmi, O. (Ed.). (2005). African gender studies: A reader. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3rd ed.). London, England: Sage.

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Written IN My Own Voice

Ethno-Educational Autobiography of Adedolapo, a Yoruba Woman

DOLAPO ADENIJI-NEILL

I remember a time in my childhood, as I walked through my family village, Ilesha, between houses and a road that only a bicycle and a person could pass through, my great aunt saw me going by and waved me into one of our family compounds. I instinctively knew what to do: I knelt at her feet—and she cradled my head lovingly. Even though I didn’t really know her personally, I knew we were bound by blood and tradition. She began to recite our family oriki—our family praise poetry, our ancestral songs:

Adedolapo, Adedolapo, omo Sapakin, oni Ikoti, she crooned: